


tono hiyori wonders if

by watermelonsenpai



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt, Emotions, Episode 6, Free! Dive to the Future, I'm still crying, M/M, hiyori why, ikuya why, really just a retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 03:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15765918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watermelonsenpai/pseuds/watermelonsenpai
Summary: "I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can."- Beryl Markham, West with the Night





	tono hiyori wonders if

**Author's Note:**

> i thought hiyori was awful at first but then episode six guilt tripped me into thinking otherwise  
> their relationship dynamic is going to crash and burn in flames so i'm here to write this before the next episode comes out so i can suspend myself in this little droplet of time

tono hiyori wonders if the little mermaid regretted anything: to be lost to the sea, to be forgotten, to have the prince have eyes for someone else but her. the prince she'd saved, she'd risked everything for, not even remembering her name; yet she could never tell him, not with her voice gone. the prince with the seaweed-algae-floodwater hair and crimson eyes that burnt quietly, like campfire memories and sandbox loneliness, the prince with the memories of everyone (promises by the water, meteor shower, sunflower field, the sting of tears and leaving) _but him_ —

tono hiyori wonders when he has become so jealous, so _bitter_.

it's not his fault. his prince just keeps thinking about the boy with the blue-sea eyes and the beautiful freestyle, because he is so much, and hiyori is only so little. hiyori’s just the side character, or maybe a mini boss, there to disrupt the heroes’ quests to the final prize: he's nothing without ikuya, yet ikuya will be something without him. strong, delicate ikuya who hiyori has vowed to protect with his life, will still be strong and delicate even if hiyori is gone (but no, he is selfish, because he doesn't want to share his star-filled sky with anyone else, he wants to be ikuya’s _something_ ). he just wants ikuya to depend on him and trust him and believe in him and love him.

so it hurts to see ikuya shake and crumble under the blue boy’s stare, because all that hiyori has built in his heart just doesn't matter, because ikuya’s head is suddenly filled with blue instead of him and hiyori’s house of cards (he says he holds all the cards, but really all he's done is given them to ikuya) can't stand the tides. it hurts because ikuya hurts, and when ikuya hurts, hiyori hurts with him (that's how the story has always gone, hiyori following ikuya till the very end). his freestyle takes the hit the worst because it's haru’s stroke and it's always haru with ikuya, haru this and haru that

_(why don't you look at me_ )

and hiyori knows haru is so much more compared to him

( _but don't i matter to you at all_ )

but hiyori wishes to his single star sky, just this once, that ikuya cares.

( _but wishes are wishes, in the end._ )

\--------

hiyori wants to see ikuya, but not at a playground at night, not when ikuya is wearing that expressionless ( _broken_ ) look on his face like he's facing the end of the world alone

as if hiyori would not follow him.

“what's wrong?” (it is always him, him to save him from ~~drowning~~ himself, him to save the prince only for him to look at someone else)

“i can't see the stars,” ikuya says, “i could see them back then.” hiyori looks up, and true enough, there aren't any, blinded by the tokyo lights and cloud cover. even the moon has hidden her gaze. hiyori knows it's a sign of his waning hope and he just wants to hold his friend's hands and tell him it's not over yet, that he's here (to save him, like the little mermaid again), he won't leave him and he will get better. sure, tournament season is coming up, but ikuya will recover in time, he's sure of it.

at least, hiyori’s hope will convince the stars to help ikuya get back on his feet.

“the day we made that promise… that day.”

and yet it is nanase haruka, the one who pinky-promised to race against him in that meteor-shower sky and in their unpredictable youth, the one who broke that promise and threw ikuya to hiyori to protect and to keep. what's so special about him anyway, except he is ikuya's drive (even if ikuya himself will never admit it), he is ikuya's inspiration, he is so much more than the small, insignificant tono hiyo—

well, nanase haruka is _something_ ~~to ikuya~~.

haruka nanase is who kirishima ikuya is thinking about, and

tono hiyori wonders what he has to do to make ikuya look at him.

“i felt like all my wishes could come true,” and they can be true, they can all be true, hiyori will do everything he can to make them true, “as if i had been set free.”

“but i was wrong.”

_what?_

“i was still as weak as ever.”

_no._

“you're strong, ikuya,” he whispers, as if it's a fragile truth, made for ikuya’s fragile eyes and hiyori’s fragile love, yet he wishes he could shout it out so the shards could shatter into ikuya’s skin and maybe he'd _realise_ . maybe he would realise that he is strong, that he is hiyori’s strength, that his spindly arms can hold so much more than just hiyori's self (hold anyone, _anyone_ but nanase haruka), that his fragile heart is already holding hiyori’s and can break, but hiyori will _be there_ and that's all it matters.

“even if i sink, no one's going to save me anymore. so i have to get stronger on my own. that's why i practiced so hard,” ikuya looks to the sky, as if he can find answers in the stars that seem to have abandoned him. and hiyori can see the cracks because that's what would fail him: the strength of a hurricane trying to stand on its own would only drive cracks in its own foundation, and he wants to say _no, lean on me, i would never leave you_ except the words are resting on his tongue and refuse to move. hiyori refuses to move, even as his heart cries otherwise. hiyori is always too late to say the right things, to do the right things, to even be enough for ikuya. he's truly a hypocrite, because who else doesn't deserve ikuya’s friendship but him? he's only wormed his way there with a sheer doggedness only someone who has known the feeling of being lonely has. not deserving. not nanase.

“you could compete at the global level. you could compete globally,” he repeats the sentence twice in his hushed tone, his silent encouragement. ikuya is so much: so much that hiyori’s heart threatens to burst into flames, a futile containment of his stupid feelings that should not get into their relationship, imperfect as it is. it would ruin them (it would kill hiyori) (it would disgust ikuya), ruin the space between their shoulders as something foul. so hiyori is okay with being thrown aside, so long as ikuya becomes his star (or so he tries to convince himself, but he is just so selfish).

“....but i couldn't get stronger.”

_he's wrong he's wrong he's wronghe’swrong—_

“that's not true!” it's never been true, of course: ikuya has always developed beautifully under natsuya’s and hiyori’s eyes, hiyori’s beautiful flower, _hiyori's_ . it hurts to breathe because ikuya is just telling himself he's not good enough but he is, he is, he has _always been_.

“you have gotten a lot stronger! you can be who you want to be!” it's true, ikuya can be so much, and hiyori would know because it's the boy he's been in love with since they met in america, since they met in japan, since hiyori dove in to save ikuya as his little mermaid only to be recognised as

nothing.

“you don't have to wish on stars to make your dreams come true!” _you don't have to keep thinking about nanase, you just need to believe in me, i will make your future come true, even if i am not your light, even if i am nothing, even if i am_

_just hiyori._

he doesn't know if he's crying, but he knows his voice is cracking and he's doing that habit of looking down, eyes scrunched, that habit he does when he wants to cry. _what a crybaby._ tono hiyori wonders if he cries, ikuya will realise how wrong he is.

“in exchange for her voice, the little mermaid gained human legs and excruciating pain.”

(ikuya has given everything to be who he is today: unrivalled swimmer)

(hiyori has given everything to be who he is today: ikuya’s friend)

“i gave up my heart in order to be stronger. or i thought i did, but…. i couldn't become human.” hiyori wonders who did this to him, because ikuya is not a failure, ikuya is a star, and he's not the one who isn't ever going to get the dream he's always wished for—

“you're wrong! you're not the little mermaid!” _ikuya’s not making sense_ . hiyori almost wants to tell him that _he’s_ the little mermaid, the one the prince will forever ignore as someone not special, left alone to shoulder his own tearing love and his own deafening loneliness. it burns through his skin, his tongue, and sets him alight with passion and fury and desperation to prove otherwise. tono hiyori wonders if his own fire will light ikuya’s waning embers, and wonders if he will ever blaze with ikuya. too bad ikuya loves the water too much.

“i can't be strong like haru.”

_you can, you're stronger than him, why don't you believe me?_

hiyori grasps ikuya's hand, feels the heartbeat below skin, pulls him down (as if he's sinking, sinking to the bottom of the ocean where he is doomed to be). a lone star hovers in the sky, unsure of its own light, a hesitant hope. ikuya’s crimson eyes widen.

hiyori hovers over ikuya, hands resting on the slide, ikuya's back to metal, close enough that if hiyori bent down they would be kissing: but that is too far for him, progressing too fast. he is content with what they are now (yet, in a dark corner of his mind, tono hiyori wonders what kirishima ikuya tastes like). their eyes lock, and hiyori doesn't ever want to let go. like this would be giving him a taste but never giving him anything, to know the feeling of ikuya’s stare but never again. like this would be torture.

“....can't you just forget about nanase already?” _can't you look at me this once?_ his voice is stripped bare and there's nothing left, just his real emotions and it's frightening that all of this is real. _you're stronger than him, he can't compare to you, because you're so much more_ _to me_ _._ hiyori is still selfish when he relishes the space between them, as if ikuya will fly away so long as he doesn’t keep clinging on, as if he is wishing so hard on that lone star that he will not be alone so long as he has the promise of ikuya on his skin, in his mouth, in the corners of his immature heart.

“i can’t stand to see you suffering because of him any longer.” _i love you. don’t get hurt and force me to watch._

“i’ll think about myself, for myself,” ikuya says to hiyori, and it is as if he has sucked all the air from this space. it is ikuya thundering (quietly, the way he has always done) at hiyori’s glass-hand barriers and they’re cracking; he’s cracking under crimson stare and cold, cold eyes, the furrow between his eyebrows (once endearing, now shocking).

“you could aim for the global level. i know you can do it. you can become a new you! if that’ll bring you happiness -” _you know i would do whatever it takes, for you._

“you don’t - you don’t understand anything!” ikuya’s hand contacts hiyori’s chest and it’s a hard shove that increases the distance between them. hiyori’s heart stops.

“don’t talk like you do!” and hiyori just wishes he understood what ikuya was thinking so he could have said everything better for him. but of course, that unbridgeable gap between ikuya and hiyori is nanase haruka, and hiyori can’t do anything about it because ikuya will never listen to him. not about this, anyway. hiyori stumbles on the sand in the sandpit but keeps his balance (just barely; if he let himself fall it wouldn’t be any different anyway). he presses his lips together, looks down, as if he is trying his best not to cry. today seems to be such an awful day for tono hiyori.

“you’re not the normal ikuya right now.” _the normal ikuya wouldn’t push me. the normal ikuya wouldn’t tell me that i don’t understand. the normal ikuya would tell me what’s going on so we can work things out. the normal ikuya would love -_ no response.

“ever since you met nanase…” _you’ve stopped looking at me._ no response.

“just forget about him.” _remember who saved you._ no response.

“why don’t you get it!? that would be the best thing for you right now!” tournament, ikuya, hiyori, swim times, _love_ \- they muddle up in hiyori’s head, one and the same, and they taste so bitter in this moment that he almost chokes on his words. he’s vaguely aware that he’s shouting but he isn’t even sure; he feels as though he’s underwater, where sound travels slower, everything blurring and lagging, where he can’t see his tears and ikuya is drowning again -

“it’s none of your concern, hiyori!” his blood is _ice_.

he doesn’t know when he gave ikuya the power to hurt him.

he doesn’t know why ikuya doesn’t understand.

he doesn’t know how to say ‘ _because i love you_ ’.

all he does is get hurt.

_all they do is leave._

“....sorry.” he doesn’t even look up to see ikuya’s retreating figure; he just hears footsteps on sand getting softer, faster. he doesn’t know which one is the coward. the air tastes like abandonment of a child who just wanted a friend, like a forced smile, like a trust in somebody who won’t ever look at him again.

(tono hiyori looks at the lone star, a hesitant spark of something most likely already dead, and wonders if, just if:

if hiyori had told him to stay, would ikuya stay for him?)

**Author's Note:**

> yes i hope you enjoyed this horrible ?? thing ??  
> i hope this ship has more works soon, last time i checked there were 22


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